Sunday, October 18, 2009

Glenn Beck Insanity Theater, Part 1

I keep running into incredible youtubes of Glenn Beck doing something insane but not really having enough material to justify posting them. Today this changes with a new, presumably ongoing, type of post: the Glenn Beck Insanity Theater.

It would be pretty easy to fill this blog with dozens of posts every day about the latest thing said by Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Michelle Malkin, but other sites do that way better than we ever will. Beck is different, though- there's an element of unhinged psychosis to his show that makes it like watching a right-wing performance artist or a crazier, yet serious, Colbert. Clearly there's a debate about how serious he is, with his past in morning zoo radio shows and his ever-changing political views standing against the emotional performances he makes and the crowds of teabaggers who believe every word of it.

You can depend on Limbaugh to say something heinous- that's his job. On the other hand, Beck is frequently inoffensive just due to how little sense he makes. Check out the clip that finally inspired me to start a regular Beck-watching bit:

I... what is happening there?! He's moved to tears by a commercial in which a bizarre child offers a football player some coke?! Even if he was serious, and make no mistake that his fans think he is, what does any of it mean? No point has been made, no concrete statements have been offered, he just mentioned a bunch of things and made a bizarre hypothetical scenario about how your parents used to be angry at you... and he did this all whilst crying. Are his viewers nodding at home, appreciating the sage wisdom imparted by his tears and commercial choices?

4 comments:

i hate those two kids. they are always getting me into trouble. I don't even know why I hang out with them any more. I should have listened to my dad when he said put down that nuclear missile son and come hug your Mom. Life was so much better when all of America's phobias and fears were kept behind closed doors. And the lights were off. And the name Bush stood for beer, pussy and dignity.

Based on that segment, I'm going to put forward a hypothesis. It's crazy, but this might just be one of those "just crazy enough to be right" times.

Glenn Beck's show is a satire, much like Colbert's, but with a few major differences.1) Glenn is not as funny as Colbert.2) Glenn is such an awesome actor that he has convinced tens of thousands of viewers that he is serious, and can actually pull off "acting like he's a bad actor" flawlessly. 3) This was his goal from the start. He is aiming to sacrifice himself to make the rest of America see exactly how ridiculous his (fake) positions are (think of "A Modest Proposal" by Johnathan Swift). He originally thought that he would be ridiculous enough to cause a recoil in the opposite direction. This backfired, because much of America is far stupider than he originally thought. He is still searching for a level of ridiculous that will cause said recoil.4) Glenn is the penultimate method actor. To such an extent that he never comes out of character. EVER. Should he ever do so, he would probably loose his job (Fox also thinks he's serious) and be lynched by thousands of enraged teabaggers.

That said, I have no evidence to support this view - Merely my (misguided) faith that the world will realize how stupid what he says is before he proposes eating babies to control population growth.

One took place in the late summer of 1963, the other in the late summer of 2009. One was promoted by a preacher from Georgia named Martin Luther King, the other by a former "shock jock" from the state of Washington named Glenn Beck. Ouch! Even mentioning the two of them in the same paragraph is somehow disconcerting.

In 1963, the the people were singing, We Shall Overcome.

Forty-six years later, the chant was, We Shall Undermine.

In 1963, a vast and varied demographic of the American people - all races and religions - descended on the nation's capitol to peaceably and nonviolently protest an injustice that was occurring in certain areas of the country to people of a certain skin pigmentation.

Forty-six years later, a Convention of Pissed-Off White People - united only by the fact that they were all habitual viewers of a single cable news channel - rolled into Washington to hurl invective at an African American president for creating a mess that he had absolutely nothing to do with creating.

In 1963, the signs people held up were optimistic: "With Liberty and Justice for All."

Forty-six years later, the signs were ominous: "We Came Unarmed - THIS TIME!"

On August 28, 1963, the hearts of people who marched on the city of Washington DC were filled with love and hope.

On September 12, 2009 they were just full of shit.

Let us boil the comparisons down to their juicy essentials, shall we? Martin Luther King had a dream. Glenn Beck has a scheme.

I am not sure about your Glenn Beck theory. But please go on about this baby eating idea. Would eating babies both end world hunger AND put a stop on overpopulation? Absolutely amazing! You should write to the show.